Peace, Be Still--A Story from My Childhood

WHEN HEAVENLY FATHER TOOK MY FEAR AWAY

(Matthew 8:23-27; Mark 4:35-41)

When I was nine years old, my brother and I were in our bunk bed in the back bedroom of the Quonset hut goofing off after the babysitter made us go to bed.

Frosty called out from the bottom bunk, “Let’s see who can hold their breath the longest.”

“Ok!” I laughed from the top bunk.  I immediately sucked in as much air as I could and held my breath until I thought I would burst.

I don’t remember who did it the longest, but I think we tried several times and after one of those times, I felt really light-headed and may have been close to passing out.  That feeling scared me.  I became alarmed and thought, “What if I die?”

Mom and Dad were gone and I didn’t want to tell the babysitter what happened, so I kept my question inside and didn’t say anything to anybody.

The next night as I was close to drifting off to sleep, I felt that same feeling I had when I held my breath too long.  Suddenly I became afraid again.  What if I died in my sleep?

I don’t remember how long I worried about this before telling my mother, but when I finally did, no matter what she said to reassure me, it didn’t work.  I just felt scared and I couldn’t shake it off.

This went on for several weeks.  Every night my mother would come talk to me.  She would sing songs.  She would tell stories.  She would pray for me.  She would tell me about how much Heavenly Father loved me and that I didn’t need to be scared to die.  But nothing helped.

Pretty soon I began thinking about this during the daytime, too, when I wasn’t doing anything else.  On the school bus I would stare out the window and wonder if I would die before the next day.  At recess I began worrying about it and wouldn’t play with my friends.  It was becoming a BIG problem.

Finally one night I went to my mother and said I needed help.  I was scared all of the time.  She knew I was right, but in those days there weren’t doctors or psychologists where we lived who understood about anxiety who could help me and the only thing mother knew to do was turn to Heavenly Father.

She told me that she had been praying for me, but now she thought I needed to go to Heavenly Father myself and ask Him to help me.  She told me that Heavenly Father loved me and that He would hear and answer my prayer.

I went into my room and knelt by the bottom bunk, folded my arms, and started to pray.  I told Heavenly Father all about being scared every night before I went to sleep and that now I was even scared during the day.  I told Him that nothing my mother did was helping me, so I needed His help.  I asked Him to take the fear away.

Right there, while I was kneeling in prayer, a warm, loving, peaceful feeling went through my body.  I felt the fear leave.  I wasn’t afraid anymore!  And I never had that fear again.

I knew that Heavenly Father had heard my prayer and taken the fear away from me.

Now I look back on more than 60 years of prayers since that sweet experience and I can say with all my heart that Heavenly Father does know us.  He knows our thoughts and our fears and our troubles.  And he has given us the wonderful gift of prayer to be able to talk to him and ask for His help.  Even if we are little children, it doesn’t matter, He is always there and He will always hear and answer our prayers.